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He was succeeded by Ramanuja, a great name in Indian theology both as the organizer of a most important sect and, if not the founder,[580] at least the accepted exponent of the Visishtadvaita philosophy.  Ramanuja was born at Sriperum-budur[581] near Madras, where he is still commemorated by a celebrated shrine.  As a youth he studied Sivaite philosophy at Conjeevaram but abandoned it for Vishnuism.  He appears to have been a good administrator.  He made the definitive collection of the hymns of the Arvars and is said to have founded 700 maths and 89 hereditary abbotships, for he allowed the members of his order to marry.  He visited northern India, including Kashmir if tradition may be believed, but his chief residence was Srirangam.  Towards the end of the eleventh century however, the hostility of the Chola King Kulottunga, who was an intolerant Sivaite, forced him to retire to Mysore.  Here he was protected by King Vittala Deva whom he converted from Jainism and on the death of Kulottunga in 1118 he returned to Srirangam where he ended his days.  In the temple there his tomb and a shrine where his image receives divine honours may still be seen.  His best known work[582] is the Sri Bhashya or commentary on the Vedanta sutras.

The sect which he founded is known as the Sri Sampradaya and its members as the Sri Vaishnavas.  As among the Sivaites revelation is often supposed to be made by Siva through Sakti, so here the Lord is said to have revealed the truth to his consort Sri or Lakshmi, she to a demigod called Visvaksena, and he to Namm’arvar, from whom Ramanuja was eighth in spiritual descent.  Though the members of the sect are sometimes called Ramaites the personality of Rama plays a small part in their faith, especially as expounded by Ramanuja.  As names for the deity he uses Narayana and Vasudeva and he quotes freely from the Bhagavad-gita and the Vishnu Purana.  Compared with the emotional deism of Caitanya this faith seems somewhat philosophic and reticent.

Ramanuja clearly indicates its principal points in the first words of his Sri Bhashya.  “May my mind be filled with devotion towards the highest Brahman, the abode of Lakshmi; who is luminously revealed in the Upanishads:  who in sport produces, sustains and reabsorbs the entire universe:  whose only aim is to foster the manifold classes of beings that humbly worship him."[583] He goes on to say that his teaching is that of the Upanishads, “which was obscured by the mutual conflict of manifold opinions,” and that he follows the commentary of Bodhayana and other teachers who have abridged it.

That is to say, the form of Vishnuism which Ramanuja made one of the principal religions of India claims to be the teaching of the Upanishads, although he also affiliates himself to the Bhagavatas.  He interprets the part of the Vedanta Sutras which treats of this sect[584] as meaning that the author states and ultimately disallows the objections raised to their teaching and he definitely approves it.  “As it is thus settled that the highest Brahman or Narayana himself is the promulgator of the entire Pancaratra and that this system teaches the nature of Narayana and the proper way of worshipping him, none can disestablish the view that in the Pancaratra all the other doctrines are comprised."[585]